Bachelor Nation loyalists know that every season of The Bachelor or its spin-offs is advertised as the “most dramatic season yet,” but for this past season of The Golden Bachelor, which wrapped last week, that may have actually been true. (And not just because it’s only the second season of this spin-off.) Fans witnessed a double-whammy of a self-elimination and no proposal at the end. Having just one of those things happen would have qualified as jaw-dropping — but both? It’s basically unheard of.
In case you missed it (or didn’t read our recap), Cindy Cullers chose to go home (right before what would have been their trip to the Fantasy Suites) over what she viewed as his lack of commitment. She had asked Owens if he could see himself getting engaged at the end of the process, and he dodged the question.
During the After the Final Rose special, Owens and Cullers rehashed their breakup, and Owens explained that he didn’t want to give a firm answer about his and Cullers’ relationship because of his strong feelings for his other finalist, Peg Munson. Cullers, meanwhile, expressed that she was simply trying to suss out whether Owens would be proposing at all at the end of the journey — which he now tells Katie Couric Media he never intended to do. “For some odd reason, she wanted to get married [right] off the show,” Owens tells us of his runner-up. “I [wasn’t] going to get married [right] off the show.”
Speaking to KCM, Owens balks at the sped-up timeline of The Golden Bachelor (which in previous seasons, filmed for four to six weeks) when compared to real-life dating. “It’s like the saying: first comes love, then comes marriage,” he says. “The other one’s not going to happen,” he jokes, confirming that at 66, a baby in a baby carriage is not in the cards. “That’s not what love is to me. It’s not leapfrog, get married, and then find love later.”
In real life, it would be unhinged to get engaged to someone after knowing them for a month or two — but that’s a feature of The Bachelor, one that adds to the stakes (and the fantasy) of the whole experience. Agreeing to be the lead of The Golden Bachelor and not wanting to get engaged is like going on Love is Blind and expecting to know what the person you’re dating looks like from the jump: It goes against the point of the show. So we couldn’t help but wonder: Had Owens ever seen the show? “I was a really ardent fan for five or six years,” he says, but he fell off as a viewer when he had kids. “I didn’t know anything about The Golden Bachelor at all when they cast me,” he admits. “I had to go back and watch it.”
Did he know going into filming that he would not get engaged, despite that being the expectation of the lead? Was this whole season a giant waste of time? “I didn’t have a hard line of, ‘I’m not going to get married, I’m not going to get engaged, I’m not going to fall in love,’” he says, but he does admit, “I was skeptical that I was going to find anyone.” Despite that assertion, Owens insisted at other points in the interview that his idea of an endgame did not include a marriage proposal. “I’m committed, but on my own terms,” he says. “I wasn’t looking to get married right off the show.”
Owens took a swipe at Cullers and her self-elimination during our interview. “I had a stronger connection with Peg. It was evident. I think she knew it, and she wanted to leave so she wouldn’t have the heartache.” Cullers, for her part, said during After the Final Rose that she doesn’t regret her decision. “I don’t need to convince a man to love me,” she told Jesse Palmer.
Even though a wedding is not on the horizon, Owens did find love with 62-year-old retired Las Vegas firefighter Peg Munson. “I wasn’t expecting it, but then all of a sudden it happened. She’s beautiful and lovely. She treats me well, and we have a lot of fun together. That’s what love is to me.”
Kyle Richards
recalled a run-in she had with Lisa Vanderpump and Ken Todd at BravoCon over the weekend.
As she also reacted to Stacey Rusch, 53, suggesting she wasn’t friendly, addressed
“I saw Ken and Lisa. And I sat there and I thought, ‘Well, what should I do,’ because it doesn’t always go well when we see each other in person. So we both kind of — maybe she did see me, maybe she didn’t. But as he was leaving, I said, ‘Goodbye, Ken!’ Kyle revealed, giving a nod to the way in which Ken kicked her out of his home on season nine. “I don’t know if he heard me or not, but I just had to do that.”
Kyle then responded to the question about Stacey’s comment.
“I have to say, that’s not a comment that usually comes from people because I’m always friendly with everyone, and I’m just going to be honest, I don’t know the, I don’t — god, this is not going to go over well, guys. I don’t watch reality television,” she explained. “I don’t watch a lot of these shows, and I don’t know a lot of the newer people, so I don’t always know, but I’m nice.”
“I don’t know which one she is. I’m just being honest. I’m not trying to be mean,” she continued. “I’ve not seen [The Real Housewives of Potomac] for many, many years. That’s just the truth. I don’t know all the cast members of all the shows. That’s just a fact.”
When Tamra Judge, 58, who was also on Kyle’s panel at BravoCon, mentioned that Reza, 52, made a negative comment about her, as well, Kyle confirmed, “I heard.”
“And Reza’s the first one who comes up to me and is so nice to me to my face — every time. So I just laugh,” she stated, as seen in a clip shared to Bravo’s Story.
Moving on to claims of not sharing enough of her life on RHOBH, Kyle admitted to being confused by the allegation.
“I always think, ‘This is so wild to me because I’ve shown my life for 15 years and everything, and people have seen a lot of great things that have happened with my family, Portia turning two years old, and now applying to college, which is so crazy, but I’ve had major falling outs with my family. Having blood on the show is a very different thing than falling out with people that you’re not as close with, and it was really painful to go through that in the public eye,” she noted. “I show so much. I’m like, ‘Do I need to put a camera in the shower or next to the toilet?’”
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills season 15 premieres on Thursday, December 4, at 8/7c on Bravo.